Return (again to the Promised Land)
by The Readers Muse
Summary: At the time it had seemed right. Letting the fire burn. Clear.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** onedayyouustchange asked for: "Morgan and Rick, any verse word: return."

 **Warnings:** Set post series, adult language, adult themes, angst, drama, hurt/comfort, possible supernatural elements/PTSD/questionable mental states, character death.

 **Return (again to the Promised Land)**

It was strange, driving back into the ruins of Kings County. Seeing the time-dulled char of the fire he'd started that night – all those year ago. It had been a painful time. He'd been too busy arguing with old ghosts to realize he'd knocked over the lantern. And by the time clarity had settled in – deep in the pit of his lungs like ash-strong smoke – it had been too late to do anything but run.

He'd left while the town was still burning.

At the time it had seemed right.

Letting the fire burn.

 _Clear._

"Feels strange, doesn't it?" he commented, breaking the long silence as he eased them through a gap in the old barricades. Glancing at the burned out buildings and crumbled in walls before turning off Main Street. "Coming back to where it all started?"

The ghosts were still fresh here.

Still bleeding.

Just as easy to access as they'd been the day he'd left.

The only difference was that he didn't hate himself anymore.

He didn't want to die before his time.

There was still too much of Eastman in him to do otherwise.

He watched the curl of his lips tug upwards in the rear-view mirror at the memory as a thin, flicker-fast vision of the man himself inclined his head from the porch steps of a shelled-out house as they coasted past. Unchanged by time with his hands folded _just so_ on the top of his staff – a silent guardian.

 _Speaking of old ghosts._

The tank was riding just above empty, but he took them the long way. Idling past the police station, letting Rick's sullen silence speak for both of them as they took in the towering weeds and sapling trees that'd taken root in the gravel and yawning cracks in the blacktop. Taking a moment to whistle in awe at the climbing vines that covered the entirety of the dusty, black-charred brick in a living lattice of creeping green.

They did the same ritual – the same return – at the hospital. Carl's old school. The wildling place on the far edge of a public pond that Rick had told him about. He and his wife's first kiss. The church where they'd gotten married. Even Shane's apartment building on the edge of town. They spent a bit longer there than any of the others. Rick wouldn't tell him why, so he just let it rest. Looking up at the exterior, windows burned up and blown out. Licked soot-black around the edges of every still from a fire that must have started within. Other than that, it was one of the few buildings the fire had left standing.

He wanted to ask Rick why that might be, but couldn't find the words.

Instead, he kept driving.

He tried to fill the silence every once and a while. Remembering things Rick and Carl had told him over the years – told Judith. Things to carry on. Things to teach. Things to remind each other that there had been something else before this life - something better.

It wasn't until the low gas indicator started to flash that he heading back to that familiar neighborhood. Smiling with his eyes as Jenny and Duane waved from the weather-stained sidewalk – grins wide and welcoming as the sunlight lanced right through them and the house they'd first taken refuge in. Translucent and whole despite the double-vision of reality that marked where it stood with moldering spears of metal and lumber-siding - a sight that was only made endearingly awkward by the blackened-brick of a lonely chimney.

He swung himself out of the driver's seat with the careful ease that comes with age and the knowledge of one's limitations. Shaking out the aches and pains of the long travel as a much younger version of Rick's ghost watched him from the porch steps of his old house – hospital gown fluttering in a non-existent wind.

But there was no house there – not anymore. He knew that. Still, that didn't stop Duane from flickering into being in the door way behind Rick, watching him the exact same way but with one of his comic books folded hap-hazardly in his hand. Waiting.

Jenny smiled at him from the passenger seat, mouth forming words his ears couldn't hear as he pulled out the folding wheelchair and snapped it into place. The blanket wrapped figure beside it remained painfully still. Reminding him of the promise he made as he helped Rick out of the back and eased him gently into the wheelchair.

He had to keep a hand on Rick's shoulder to make sure he stayed upright as he forced the chair across the sloping, overgrown lawn. Pausing to rub at his sore back before easing them down into the depths of the burned out shell of Rick's old house. He nearly lost his grip on the chair more than once as he looked for the right spot. Somewhere the concrete had cracked wide and the grey-stained crumble could be chipped away to rediscover the bare earth.

It was hard work.

A bit more than his years could handle.

But he never quit.

He'd made a promise after all.

"Everything gets a return, my friend," he remarked softly, looking up to catch the shattered sunshine glinting across exposed rebar and more than a few metal beams as the distant sound of Duane's laughter gave the moment its head. "It's time to rest."

Then he began to dig.

* * *

 **Authors Note #2:** Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. - This story is now complete.


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